On the field trip following the Antwerp Bat House Symposium, I learned several useful photography techniques from Erik Korsten on how to photograph bats in bat boxes with an SLR camera. Firstly there is the issue of focus – many of us use auto-focus a lot of the time – single shot centre metering is better for bats. If a bat is 2/3 of the way inside the box, hanging from the roof, then the rim of the box will fool your camera as you look up and the bat will be out of focus. A manual focus on the bat will solve this or an auto focus mode which allows you to select your subject and then move the camera. Focusing on the side of the bat box, maybe on the wire fixing point, and then moving to your subject can often get the bat perfectly in focus.